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Cold Penne Pasta & Plum-Cucumber Salsa

Easy and light pasta dish with great flavors for lunch or any meal. It’s quick and ready without heating up the kitchen!

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 13 ingredients
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Cold Penne Pasta & Plum-Cucumber Salsa

Why it works: Pasta and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 298 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Cold Penne Pasta & Plum-Cucumber Salsa

Serves 2
Prep8 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

652Calories
17 gProtein
35 gFat
70 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 12 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Pasta1 cup cooked (140g)220
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Blue Cheese1 oz (28g)100
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Plum1 medium (66g)30
Cucumber1/2 cup sliced (52g)16
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Peppermintnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pasta + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Cucumber + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pasta + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Plum + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pasta, butter, plum, cucumber, onion, olive, vinegar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pasta, butter, plum, cucumber, onion, olive, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.